


The gold room where everyone finally gets what they want

by rironomind



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 23:59:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15107486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rironomind/pseuds/rironomind
Summary: It's the end of the world and Satan is alone.Inspired by the works of Richard Siken. Spoilers for ep 10





	The gold room where everyone finally gets what they want

**Author's Note:**

> I recently (finally) got my copy of Crush by Richard Siken and was flipping through it around the time Devilman Crybaby came out. I abandoned this for a long time before finishing it, sorry it's not beta'd. 
> 
> Each section is told in three parts: a quote, Ryo's dream and Satan's reality.

_No more tears. I would like to meet you all_  
_in Heaven. But there's a litany of dreams that happens_  
_somewhere in the middle._  
_\- Snow and Dirty Rain_  


Heaven is not, as everyone thinks, a place where anyone goes if they’re good enough. It’s a place you earn. So maybe he was tired of that, of needing to earn a place. Maybe God got tired of him the way a mother gets tired of her starving children. Maybe the children could never get full. Maybe they tried, they ate and ate, but their stomachs were too large and empty and their mother got tired of their grumbling and sent them out to play. Out of the house, into the empty, hungrier world.

Ryo dreams of a world where he lives with Akira in a small town somewhere in Japan. Akira is a teacher and Ryo is a consultant for companies. He works remotely and attends meetings through video calls. The work is challenging, perhaps because his colleagues are a little slow and unpredictable, but also because human nature is generally unpredictable. Akira can attest to that since he deals with children and Ryo commiserates.

On weekday mornings, Ryo, not being one to sleep in, makes breakfast while Akira drags himself out of bed and has a shower. He comes out of the shower dripping with moisture, hair sleek and desirable and Ryo doesn’t wonder why neighbours think they’re models. Akira leaves the house quickly more often than not, with bread stuffed in his mouth and Ryo waving leisurely after him with a cup of coffee in his hand. Ryo himself isn’t housebound, even preferring to take his laptop with him to the handful of cafes scattered about town and sometimes, when the weather permits, even the park. Rarely does he have to make trips out of the small town he’s in and more often than not, he can come home to a warm meal and a warm bed.

“The thing about good and evil,” Satan says, aloud, barely breathless even as he has been pushed to his very limit. “Is that it doesn’t truly exist. It’s a conflict of ideas.” Perhaps if he says it louder, the one who needs to hear it the most will listen and believe him. Everyone is a child who’s hungry. Everyone is a mother who is tired. There is no such thing as true altruism and someone like Satan knows this.

God was in power and Satan didn’t agree. He was flung out of heaven to the furthest edges of the universe. After that, God decided the final nail on the coffin should be that he would never be happy, and made it so.

And people wonder why Satan doesn’t like when God decides things.

-

 _monsters are always hungry, darling,_  
_and they're only a few steps behind you,_  
_\- Snow and Dirty Rain_

In the dream Ryo keeps coming back to, they would live out a whole life together. Ryo hadn’t planned it out or anything but he had thought a landed property would be nice. Someplace with a backyard and a tree and lots of sun. Akira used to laugh at him for having a penthouse with a pool on his balcony, but those are the best houses to have to give you plenty of space to think. But if he were to settle down, he’d love a house. Small enough for Akira to feel comfortable in it, but large enough that Ryo would have room to breathe.

In a town, there’s no need to survey the cityscape so the house would only have two stories. They would own a dog and spoil it rotten with treats. It would be large and shed hairs all over the place and be incredibly willful and stubborn. Only Akira would be able to take it on walks but it would come when Ryo called.

Satan half-sits, half-lies on the rock, Akira’s torso heavy in his lap. We shouldn’t be here, Satan thinks. We should be cramming disgusting convenience store burgers into our mouths and swimming with our clothes on. Or we could be in a small town somewhere, with bread in our mouths, sunshine on our laps, watching a large dog bounding in the grass. He only realises he said it aloud when his voice cracks.

Akira doesn’t reply. His mouth doesn’t even move. It stopped moving hours ago.

“Hey, Akira,” Satan says. “What am I feeling right now? What is this?” Akira’s face and torso grow wet with salty liquid. Satan’s naked torso aches. The wings on the sides of his head and on his back flutter restlessly. “What is this?”

\--

 _I couldn't get the boy to kill me_  
_But i wore his jacket for the longest time  
-Little Beast_

The sun is rising, spilling yellow light everywhere and onto the white sheets of the bed they share. Ryo sits up in bed, he doesn’t even think about it. Akira’s alarm hasn’t rung yet so Ryo switches it off. He places a hand to wake Akira but the touch is enough to make him stir. A strange habit for a heavy-sleeper.

The dog pads into their room and licks Akira all the way awake. Ryo leaves him spluttering to make breakfast. As he stirs the eggs in the pan, he looks out the window. This place is similar to their childhood foster home by the sea. The sun is just as blinding here.  
  
In those days, words sat heavy on everybody’s tongue to be flung like stones that bounce off his skin. It didn’t hurt, although people seemed to think it should. It was only the absence of feeling that left a stinging sensation on his skin.

Akira covers the cat’s body with his own, “Don’t kill it.”

“You’re a fool,” Ryo told him.

“It’s not foolish to want to protect something!” Akira insists, crying harder.

 _Maybe_ , Ryo thinks, hand tightening around the handle of a knife, the handle of a gun. Each time he raises his weapon he thinks of this moment, involuntarily, like a sneeze. _Maybe I’ve never had something to protect_.

The clouds roll in suddenly, and Ryo reminds Akira to bring his umbrella with him. “Come home safely,” he says. Akira pauses in the doorway and kisses him.

When the rain finally falls, it rolls off their naked bodies and each drop feels like a rock battering against Satan’s skin.

\--

 _I made_  
_this place for you. A place for you to love me._  
_If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is.  
-Snow and Dirty Rain_

In this small town, everyone knows who they are. Well, they know who Akira is, the handsome PE teachers from the local high school, and Ryo is his smart, charismatic partner.

On date nights, Ryo pulls up in his black Ford to pick Akira up. He usually leans against the car to wait, enjoying the sun and the natural breeze as the girls titter and the boys gape. Once Akira spots him, he takes these long loping strides over to Ryo and slings an arm around his waist, drawing him in and dipping him low.

“It’s just because we’re in front of my school,” Akira explains, but the jut of his hip tells Ryo he’ll be ravaged once they’re behind the tinted windows of the car. Not everything has to be gentle in this world.

But after that, they’ll go to dinner at a mid-tier restaurant towards the outskirts of town. It’s the only steakhouse around and is owned by a retiree and his wife in their late 60s. They import beef and cook it for the select few who enjoy high-quality steaks, and for some locals who want to indulge for a night or so.

“We’re lucky to have this place,” Ryo says, meaning the town as a whole. “The food is very good.” The beef is tender and juicy and the mashed potatoes are creamy and drizzled liberally with gravy.

“Yeah, but I think food tastes amazing as long as you’re in good company,” Akira says, mouth full of dinner rolls. “And I’m having the best meal ever.” He says this every time and he sounds like he always means it but Ryo feels good every time.

The day ends when they return home, switch off the lights and climb into bed. Usually their wine-soaked bodies intertwined until Ryo can’t tell where he ends and where Akira begins. Tonight Akira wraps an arm around him cradles him close and Ryo feels a drop of something warm and golden fall into him. He thinks if he spends enough years like this, eking out this feeling drop by golden drop, he might be filled with enough light to cleanse him.

He closes his eyes and opens them to see cherubs line the sky, each one a spitting image of Satan. Their light curled hair, sexless bodies and snow-driven wings form into beings of pure energy as they prepare to end the world.

Satan, now Ryo, watches before bending, almost slumping over. He uses his body to cover what is left of Akira and waits. It’s stopped raining, but it will soon be.

There is no small town in this ending. What awaits is oblivion. But maybe after that, perhaps there will be another small town, with a house, a backyard with a tree and a large dog, bounding through the grass towards two smiling people.

 


End file.
